Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

“I was so mad”

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The other night I was walking across the street. The light was green for me but a car full of men didn’t stop and nearly ran me over. I flipped them the finger. The car stopped in front of me and the driver shouted: “I just want to fuck you”, to screams of laughter from his passengers. I was so mad. They reduced me to a mad woman shouting swear words at the back of a car. I was completely powerless. And scared. I didn’t know if that car was going to keep driving or if one of the men was going to get out.

– Anonymous

Location: Johannesburg, South Africa

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Check out the new book 50 Stories about Stopping Street Harassers!

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“I felt really disgusted”

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I was at a bus stop, waiting for my bus to arrive, it was dark out. I see a man with a hooded sweatshirt and he appeared to be faceless because all I saw was the hoodie and baggy sweatpants. He stood about 5 feet away from me, to my side. I had a weird feeling about him and I looked and he was reaching into his pants, I got scared and thought he was going to pull out a knife or a gun. I was so scared wondering what should I do, run away?! but then I keep looking and he pulled out his dick… I saw and just walked away.

I felt really disgusted. I walked away behind him, where other people were also waiting for the bus. I stood between two older women. I felt disgusted and dirty like I had to go home and take a shower, It made me feel like a piece of meat. I couldn’t believe what had just happened. I had experienced street harassment since I was very young, about 9 or 10 years old, but this has got to be the worst one.

Do you have any suggestions for dealing with harassers and/or ending street harassment in general?

I would suggest that for catcallers, they get called out on their actions, but I understand that is very difficult to do especially because one is always considering their own safety before anything else. for example, I thought that person had a gun or knife, you never know! I usually never make eye contact with men on the street because if I do, most of the time I get the “sexual lustful stare”

– Anonymous

Location: Bus stop in San Francisco, CA

Share your street harassment story for the blog.
Check out the new book 50 Stories about Stopping Street Harassers! 

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USA: “What is this Crap?” Media and Messaging

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Equinox

By Sara Schwartzkopf, Colorado, USA, SSH Correspondent

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the relationship between women and the media. There are the unavoidable Halloween ads and subsequent discussions on costumes for girls and women. Then there’s the fact that I recently re-watched Miss Representation (if you haven’t yet, it’s up on Netflix now and has some great interviews and points). Oh, and then I got online today and came across this headline about Equinox replacing photographer Terry Richardson for their campaigns. If you’re not familiar with Equinox, guess what they’re promoting with the following ad.

Did you guess fitness? No? Well that’s unfortunate, because Equinox is actually a high-end gym.

Now ad campaigns like this are par for the course – tall, thin, scantily clad, posing for men, often missing their faces. It’s so much that we often just accept it as part of the landscape of our existence. Maybe if we never absorbed much media, or weren’t affected by it, this wouldn’t be such a huge issue. Thing is we do. The average teen is exposed to about 10 hours and 45 minutes of media per day. That’s TV, music, movies, magazines, and Internet. Media is culture transmission, teaching us how to act and informing our viewpoints. If it had no effect, then there would be no point to either advertisements or a Federal Communications Commission.

I used the example of the Equinox ads because they strike me as a perfect example of not only promoting sex over a product, but also of established gender roles. The women in the ads are performing (quite literally) for the pleasure of men. Especially in the first ad, the man is the more powerful one.

It’s worth noting that media promotes these roles. Men’s masculinity revolves around having women. Not loving them or connecting with them, but obtaining them and getting them to do what they want. Women in films are frequently seen as having their lives revolve around men. Despite how ridiculously simple the Bechdel Test is, it’s still estimated that 75% of films fail it. Meanwhile men are rarely shown as depicting emotions that deviate from anger, competition or humor.  Even in romantic comedies, there’s still a trope of women liking men who come off as jerks. So while women’s lives are seen as being about satisfying men, men aren’t supposed to cater to women’s needs.

I find it hard to believe that these overriding cultural messages don’t trickle down to the street level. Men are taught that powerful men get women. Women are taught to cater to men, and that men care about their appearances. It’s not such a surprise then that men think of catcalling as a method to get dates and assert themselves. It’s also not a surprise that women find such behavior to be a compliment, or something that they should just let slide.

There’re a lot of cultural narratives that try to simplify men and women down to basic creatures. The thing is, we’re incredibly complex. The beauty of culture is that it can change. It changes when we speak up, when we act in way that we want to see and when we hold others accountable to higher standards. Expect more out of your media, and expect more out of the people in your life.

Sara is a recent graduate of the University of Denver where she majored in Sociology, International Studies, and minored in Japanese. She has previously written on issues relevant to the Native American community at Le Prestige Du Monde, pulling heavily on her experiences as a mixed-race Kiowa and Chickasaw.

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A Study for the People, Funded by the People

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Nov. 2001, my 1st semester in college, a man grabbed my crotch as I stood on the sidewalk outside a friend’s house after this party (I was waiting for another friend).

College is when I experienced the most street harassment. Some days it seemed like I faced hoots, hollers, honks — and worse — whenever I left campus. When I went running, walked to volunteer at a domestic violence shelter, or took the bus to restaurants or the mall with friends.

Despite the fact that I was part of the social justice organization at my school and I picked up a second major in women’s and gender studies, I did not know the term “street harassment” then, nor what to do. Instead, I just felt frustrated, angry, and upset a lot and eventually changed my life to try to avoid it.

That was nearly a decade ago, and fast-forward to today, and it seems the term street harassment is much more commonly understood and there are so many groups speaking out against it now, including even the United Nations!

In the last eight years, many countries across the world have conducted studies on the topic, including in Egypt, Yemen, India, Peru, France, and the UK. They are using the study findings to better address the problem and to gain more widespread support in stopping it.

In the U.S., however, this is not happening. More than 15 years ago, there were two academic studies conducted in Indianapolis and the California Bay Area showing that 100 percent of women experienced street harassment. In 2000, there was a quick phone poll showing that at least 80 percent of women across the nation had – with no significant difference if they lived in urban, suburban or rural areas.

But the U.S. has no national comprehensive study looking at the types of harassment that happens, how often, its impact on people’s lives, or why people harass. And, there is no national study that surveys both women and men on these topics or includes harassment based on sexual orientation or gender expression.

After studying, writing about and speaking about this topic for more than six years, I feel SO strongly about the need for this study that I spend a lot of my “free time” (outside  of work and family time/obligations) trying to raise $47,000 to be able to fund this comprehensive national study so I can use the best surveying firm available. We’re nearly half-way toward that amount.

I have also spent my free time and my own money traveling and conducting focus groups to bring forward under-represented voices. This includes paying my way to places like South Dakota, Los Angeles, Kansas City, and New York City to conduct them with groups like Native Americans, queer women of color, and GBTQI men of all races.

I REALLY REALLY believe we need this study to better prove this is a problem and to galvanize more support for stopping it and also so we as activists can create more targeted awareness campaigns, educational materials, and work to prevent it from happening in the first place.

I say all this to ask you to please donate what you can (minimum $10) to make this study possible. I cannot do this alone. If you have been harassed, please consider making a donation. If someone you know has been harassed, please consider making a donation.

This will be a study about the people, for the people… funded by the people. There are no big foundations or granters, this is about us, our experiences, and our desire to make a change for us, for the next generation, and for the betterment of our country.

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USA: Halloween Costume Review

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By Angela Della Porta, SSH Correspondent

Deciding on a Halloween costume is a pretty arduous task – you want to be original, and of course you want people to get it. Well, that task is especially hard for women! We have to balance having a great costume with not “asking for it.” I mean, I want to get trick-or-treat fun, not harassment or assault! So, I went to iParty to find the perfect costume, but I had a bit of a hard time finding an outfit. I thought I’d share a couple of my final contenders.

Going as Someone Else’s Culture

 

It’s a classic, right? Go as a Native American. The year before, I went as an African American and next year I’ll go as Latino. That makes complete sense!

If Native American didn’t work, I could always try wearing this flowy nightie that no one in India wears as clothing. Ooh, and you’ve got to love the double entendre of “Taj”ing one’s “Hall,” whatever that means.

The Criminal Justice System

I’m pretty sure this is what women have to wear in prison. I mean, it fits – since women in prison are pretty much sentenced to sexual assault from guards and medical officials the moment they enter the prison industrial complex, this outfit will be perfect.

 

I’m sure an outfit like that makes it easy to run after criminals and protect society. I wonder, though, where does the costume designer think she should put her gun?

Childhood Fun

Now, I remember Spongebob as a harmless cartoon, but it takes a lot of work to sexualize a woman by making her a sponge. You’ll see in the bottom right-hand corner that Nickelodeon, a children’s TV station, is the company selling this. Cute.

This is an ACTUAL children’s costume. It’s a children’s size 4/6, but it’s a cropped-top spandex devil outfit called “Red Hot” where the model in the photo is wearing platform stilettos  You can see in the photo that it says, “Children’s Size Costume.” They tell you it’s for children so many times because you can’t believe that six year olds, the average wearer of a children’s size 4/6, want to be sexy devil for Halloween. But they do, or it wouldn’t be there.

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Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t do this review because I think there is something inherently wrong with sexy women’s costumes (well, I’m not a fan of the cultural appropriation in the first two, but that’s another post). I’m just not sure what women are supposed to do. If they buy any of these costumes, the only ones on the shelves for adult women, then they are left to be scrutinized and judged for “asking for harassment or assault.” If something were to happen when in this costume, they would be blamed.

Women, wear whatever you want on Halloween, and on every other day of the year, for that matter. But it’s a catch 22 – want to wear something sexy? Get harassed. Want to wear something not-sexy? If you can find something, you still face judgment for not ascribing to someone else’s idea of femininity. So what do we do?

You can let people know their comments and judgments aren’t okay. You can call out rape culture and sexism in your own life.

Angela Della Porta is a recent graduate of Clark University in Worcester, MA. She will join with Teach for America in Detroit in the fall. Until then, she’s spending her time in rural Maine. Follow her on Twitter: @angelassoapbox

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